Wednesday, February 6, 2013

'I Was Manti Te'o'

I'm not trying to trick anyone into reading about football. My ongoing personal goal of boycotting the NFL over what the sport does to its players is coming along nicely -- I even managed to avoid watching the Super Bowl. (My wife actually watched more of the game than I did, a first for our relationship.)

But I would think that any Robert Anton Wilson fan, e.g. anyone concerned over the nature of reality and the "reality tunnels" that each of us live in, has to be fascinated by the unfolding story of football star Manti Te'o and his "fake girlfriend," who by Te'o's account was perfectly real to him, at least for awhile. Slate's article, "I Was Manti Te'o," argues convincingly that while Te'o lied about aspects of the relationship, he apparently also really was taken in.

Here is an interesting sentence from Davy Rothbart's account: "A relationship built on calls and texts can be integrated into a busy life a lot more easily than an actual relationship." But his piece raises the question of what an "actual relationship" is.

Rothbart says that he, too, had a relationship with a man pretending to be a woman and explains how it happened.

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A daily posting from Tom Jackson about my favorite writer, Robert Anton Wilson. I also seek material by or about Robert Shea, Mr. Wilson's collaborator in writing "Illuminatus!" If you have tips, you may write me at tom.jackson@gmail.com. Please put "Robert Anton Wilson" in the subject line.